


Silence

by mayrwyn



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayrwyn/pseuds/mayrwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe, on immortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence

After hours, at a small table in the corner of the bar, Joe said he'd never wanted to be immortal, and they didn't believe him. Mac and Amanda smiled at him almost indulgently, as if thanking him for the polite lie, but persisted. Never? Really? They talked about gray hair and arthritis, and other things that they knew nothing about. To be so old, they seemed awfully thick sometimes. Surely Joe had to envy them, just a little, just sometimes. 

Because Joe couldn't understand how hard it was, could he?

Joe had buried his parents. The last woman he'd loved, he'd seen killed in front of him while he tried desperately to get to her and stop it. Helpless. Useless.

He'd watched friends being lowered into the ground who had been unable to face the whole of one mortal lifetime. He'd endured countless sleepless nights wondering what signs he'd missed that could have saved them. 

Other friends. Too many to count. Talented, funny, incredible musicians who cut their lives short with too much alcohol or too many cigarettes. Lung cancer and liver failure, both miserable ways to die. He could still hear some of them playing in his head, they way they'd sounded before the lifestyle caught up with them. Others he would have sworn he would never forget, but their songs had faded as surely as the sound of their voices.

Vietnam. One word, too damned much rolled up in it to even begin to contemplate without bringing the dreams back full force. 

Joe didn't have to be immortal, to know what it felt like to be the only one left.

Mac slapped him on the back, Amanda kissed him on the cheek, and if they hadn't chosen that moment to stroll laughing out of the club, he may have ended up throwing his beer bottle at one or the other. But he took too long to decide which one, and then they were gone.

"Sometimes," Methos said, replacing Joe's empty beer bottle with a glass of whiskey, "people talk too much, and think too little."

The anger left as quickly as it came, and Joe found himself unable to meet the old man's eyes. "Just don't go before me."

"Never," Methos said softly.

They finished the bottle in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Previously published on HL Fiction.


End file.
